Organizing 101

Your Voice Matters

Local decisions are swayed by input. Contacting your elected representatives early and often is crucial to this process. Click on the images below to send an email, sign up for their email newsletters, attend your district meetings, or call them (School Board, City Council, or Mayor).

School Board

City Council

Mayor Stoney

Your Actions Matter

Click on the images below to learn about ongoing efforts to move Richmond forward.

Thriving Richmond

Student Organizing

Funding and Policy Action Team

Timeline

Past Actions

The idea and framework emerged from two years (2014-2015) of researching and writing about Richmond. The intentions behind this blog were to serve the personal sanity of the author, and to make his mom proud that his words were on the internet.

When the 300-page school facilities plan was completed by the Facilities Task Force and community meetings were being held, there was no online resource with publicly accessible background documents. In effort to provide transparency and translation, the website was formed to post all materials and graphic designer Gabriel Vernon developed this One-Pager.

Elkhardt Middle School was closed in February 2015 due to dangerously high-levels of mold, and a small group from the facilities task force reached out to Area 10 Faith Community who helped provide communications and food to help Elkhardt staff move. Over 40 volunteers responded and CBS6 news provided coverage to raise awareness.

The overwhelmingly positive response solidified in our minds that organizing to improve education and neighborhoods was a major need in Richmond.

2016

In 2016, we experimented from our base as a transparency tool to policy analysis, student expression projects, and advocate training. Please read our exciting 2016 Year 1 recap for more background.

Mayorathon

Budget Position

Art180 Student Expression

Parents Night Speak Out with Peter Paul Development Center

2017

In 2017, we’re focusing our approach to act as a value-added resource of policy analysis and education. We still believe in raising the level of engagement within the community, but will rely on strategic partnerships within communities to “bring more people to the table.” We’re going to focus on what they are eating at the table.